


Visions of Gideon

by kategkateg



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Abusive Relationship, Angst, California, Chaptered, Fluff, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, LA, Lester Family Vacation(s), M/M, Original Character(s), Poor!Dan, Strangers to Lovers, Summer Love, fight, friends - Freeform, waiter!dan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-03-13 15:16:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13573281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kategkateg/pseuds/kategkateg
Summary: Dan Howell is a waiter at the local cafe in Los Angeles. He has a great best friend, a shitty boyfriend, a studio apartment and not enough money.Lesters decided to go to LA this time and one evening Phil wanted some ice-cream.





	1. Chapter 1

Dan entered the kitchen, followed by his boyfriend Mike. He walked over to the counter, already feeling uneasy about what was about to happen. He didn’t even get a chance to turn and face Mike before he was roughly spun around by him, Mike’s body pressing him into the counter with his wrists being held tightly.

“How many times have I said that you have to behave around my friends?” Mike hissed, clearly pissed off.

“How many times have I said that I’m not just your bitch that has to obey like a dog every time you want to show off in front of these jerks?” Dan spat angrily, feeling the heat creep up on his face.

Dan has been staying with Mike for the past two days when his friends came over. Of course, he was neither prepared nor happy to deal with their bullshit but he figured it’d be rude if he went home the second they stepped inside. He hated when he had to be around them. Mostly because of them not being the best of people but also because Mike would act like them. He felt the pressure on his wrists getting stronger and now he was almost sure that he was going to have bruises there. Needless to say, his boyfriend was ridiculously strong and his skin was too thin, so he was constantly sporting blue and purple in different spots. Or, well, it was something he preferred to tell himself.

“You are hurting me!” He yelped, trying to loosen up his boyfriend’s grip and not succeeding.

“I don’t care. It’s my house and as soon as you’re here you will be doing what I want you to do, do you understand?”

“Fuck you,” Dan cursed, pushing Mike away with his body and shrugging his hands off.

“You wish,” Mike just laughed watching him disappear in a doorway.

Just when he stormed out of the house, he realized that Mike drove him there and definitely wasn’t planning on giving him a ride home. He sighed tiredly, rubbing his wrists and starting his one hour walk to his apartment. What a wonderful Sunday afternoon.

Once he got back home and stepped inside, he immediately tossed his shoes away and flopped down on his bed, burying his face in soft and cool sheets. Dan inhaled deeply and felt a slight smell of his favourite conditioner. He hoped that he still had some of it left because he didn’t think that he could afford to buy it this month.

He rolled over to his back and fished his phone out of his pocket. It was almost four pm, which meant that PJ was already off of his shift, so he dilated his number and put the phone to his ear waiting for phone beeps to be replaced by the voice of his friend.

His gaze went wondering around his tiny studio apartment, from dull light-brown wallpapers to an old stove that didn’t look like it was safe to use. He didn’t have money and the vast majority of his belongings was either old, cheap or both, yes, but he kept everything tidy, so at least it looked alright.

“Hey Dan,” PJ’s voice reached through the dynamic. “Home safe and sound?”

“Yeah, kind of,” He trailed off, his eyes involuntary catching the glimpse of his wrists. “How was your shift?”

“Really good, actually. Didn’t do much but we have established the deadline for our project. Since we are almost done, it’ll be out on the 14th, so tell me if you need tickets.” Dan heard a smile in his words and couldn’t help but smile himself.

“I’m proud of you, Peej,” He murmured, getting up and walking towards the sink to get some water. An hour long walk under the heat of the Californian sun at the end of May wasn’t going to get you hydrated.

“Thought so,” PJ laughed. “Do you mind if I come over right now?”

“No, of course not,” Dan said opening the fridge in an attempt to find something that they could eat. “Are you okay with leftover pasta?” He asked, having nothing better to offer.

“I love your pasta, mate,” PJ exclaimed. “See you in twenty then?”

“Um, actually,” Dan bit his thumb, squinting his eyes and already feeling embarrassed about what he was going to ask. “Can you please buy some bananas?” He felt his entire face going red. He hated being poor in moments like this.

“Sure thing! Now I have to leave you because I’m going to get hit by a car if we keep talking,” PJ laughed before hanging up.

Dan was serving their food on two plates when he heard someone knock on the door.

“Come in!” He answered, putting one of the plates into the microwave that surprisingly never heated up plates, only food, which was a really nice thing since it was cheap as hell.

“Howdy,” PJ greeted, closing the door behind himself and stumbling into the kitchen area, putting something heavy on Dan’s little table. Dan turned towards his friend and shot him a happy smile, which instantly disappeared when he saw two giant bags of groceries sitting on his table.

“What’s that?” He asked suspiciously, eyeing the bags and then PJ.

“I’ve got my paycheck,” PJ shrugged, walking over Dan’s desk next to his bed and putting Dan’s charger, who was now relaxed, into his own phone. It was pretty big because our project has an impressive funding, so I bought you some food.”

“Peej,” Dan roared, his eyebrows furrowed. “You know how much I hate it when you spend any money on me. I can’t make it up to you. Take it all to your place.” He frowned at him putting the next plate in the microwave.

“And you know how much I hate it that you can’t afford something as simple as food, Dan,” PJ sighed looking at him and starting to put everything on shelves and into the fridge. “Just let me do something good for you. Wanna this now?” He turned to face Dan, banana in his hand.

Dan looked at it and felt his mouth starting watering. He reached out his hand and took the fruit, the blush appearing on his cheeks. “Thank you,” He mumbled before biting the tip off.

“You’re welcome,” PJ ruffled his curls and placed both plates on the table.

“Do you want to have something?” Dan gestured somewhere behind his back where all of the cupboards and his fridge, now full of food, were situated.

“Nah, I honestly prefer your pasta.”

 

 

“And we decided to put some polish on it to make it really glossy. In the end, it turned out better than I was expecting, so I really hope that you’d come and see yourself,” He rambled with excitement. They were sitting and talking about his project – a sculpture for (RED). PJ was someone who you could call a modern artist of some sort and currently he was busy putting up different artwork for brands and funds and making some good money off of it.

“I’d love to, Peej. I hope nothing pops up out of nowhere. If it doesn’t – of course I’ll be there,” Dan gave him a reassuring smile and scratched his nose.

“Dan!” PJ yelped, making Dan jump. “What the hell is that?” He bent over, his eyes now closely examining Dan’s wrists. Dan bit his lip and stared at the table, not wanting to make eye contact with PJ. “You do realize that it’s abuse?” He asked, concern lacing his facial expression and intonation.

“He just… Held a bit too tight. My skin is thin, it’s a normal thing,” Dan disagreed, not sounding earnest even for his own ears.

“Dan,” PJ said in a stern voice. Dan just turned his head away, not having anything to say. He was saved from the dreadful conversation about his relationship with Mike by a sound of an incoming message. He took his phone from the table and read the message. “Who’s that?” PJ asked, seeing that whatever it was had Dan tensed up.

“Landlord,” Dan replied with a shrug. “He’s going to pick up my rent in ten days.”

“Do you have enough money?”

“I’ll think of something,” Dan winked at him gleefully before asking more questions about the project, trying to avoid uneasy talk at all costs.

 

 

Dan was washing the dishes after PJ left when his phone rang. He closed the tap and dried his hands off with a towel before approaching it. He didn’t want it to be Mike calling him. When he looked at the screen over squinted eyes, he let out a sigh of relief and picked up.

“Hi Sarah, what’s up?”

“Hi Dan, are you busy? I need to be at the hospital tonight and Jeremy is still in Nebraska, could you babysit Cassidy?” a woman’s voice came from his phone.

“Sure thing. Overnight?” He asked, already thinking of activities that he could do with little Cassidy for the rest of the evening. It would be around seven pm when he arrives at their house, so he had a little time to play with the girl.

“Yes, please,” Sarah pleaded, sounding like she was in a hurry. “I’ve already told her that you’re coming, money’s at the counter. I’ll come back early in the morning, so you don’t have to wake her up. “

“You cunning, you knew that I’d come,” He laughed, putting dry dishes in a cupboard above his head. “See you in twenty,” He said and ended the call.

He met Sarah’s family two years ago at the café he was still working in. He was their waiter and Cassidy was showing a particular interest towards his curls – her whole family had a straight hair, so it must have been exciting for her to see something different. When he received their order, Cassidy asked him if he could touch his hair. Sarah and Jeremy were about to apologize for her behaviour but Dan was faster, bending down and letting the girl pull his locks and laugh in amusement after seeing them curl back. Since then they’ve been visiting the café rather frequently. Dan had played with Cassidy a couple of times during his lunch break before he was asked by her parents to babysit her for the first time. Since then, he was often finding himself in their house with a little girl while her parents were busy.

He cleaned up the rest of the kitchen area, tossed his charger and some spare clothes before putting his headphones in and leaving the flat. When he walked down the stairs and out of the building, he stopped next to the fence and unlocked his bicycle, hopping on it and praying that California wouldn’t present him an unpleasant surprise in form of a rain neither today nor tomorrow.

With blackbear playing in his headphones, he stopped by Sarah’s fence in less than twenty minutes and parked his bicycle under the window next to the door before entering the house. When he walked in, he was immediately greeted by Cassidy’s cheerful voice accompanying the girl running towards him.

“Danny!” She smiled at him and then laughed when he picked her up.

“Hi princess,” Dan bent his head at her, making sure that he was safe while sitting in his arms. “Where’s your mom?”

“There!” She exclaimed, pointing towards the lounge with her tiny finger and wrapping her other arm around his neck at the same time.

“Hi Dan,” Sarah shot him a grin and walked to the door, already ready to leave. “I’ll come back around five or six, so don’t get scared when you hear me open the door. I left some pizza for you in the fridge if you’re hungry,” She continued, picking her keys up and opening the door. “Bye guys,” She waved and left, closing the door.

“I wanna show you my dinosaurs,” Cassidy beamed at him.

“Let’s go,” He sang in response, carrying her to the lounge.

They’ve spent approximately an hour looking at various dinosaurs in Cassidy’s new book and discussed which one of them was their favourite. She had settled on a triceratops and then told Dan that he should pick this one too because it was _obviously_ the best one. Dan agreed with a serious nod and asked her about her week, letting her play with his hair while she was telling him about some girl from the playground that played with her the other day. Eventually, Cassidy got a little bit bored and asked Dan to do something else.

“Do you wanna make some pancakes? I could make them in a shape of triceratops just for you,” He cackled. He would never get tired of this girl’s energy.

“Really?” She gasped at him in awe and then ran to the kitchen, chanting “triceratops pancakes, triceratops pancakes” on his way there. Dan just shook his head with affection and got up from the floor, following the little girl into the kitchen.

He let her pick up the food colouring and pour ingredients into the mixture, so there was a complete mess everywhere when he was pouring it into the pan for the first time with Cassidy looking over his shoulder with astonishment, watching him draw little lines to form the dinosaur. When they’ve finished cooking and decorating everything, Cassidy was seemingly tired and asked Dan to go to bed after the third eaten triceratops. Dan obeyed and made sure she fell asleep before returning back to the kitchen and cleaning up after himself.

 

 

The next morning he felt someone shake him awake and freaked out at first before realizing that it was Sarah. He sat up on a couch, giving her a quiet greeting and some space to sit down beside him.

“How was she?” She whispered, picking something up from Dan’s head that appeared to be a feather from one of the couch pillows.

“Obsessed with dinosaurs,” He gurgled with laughter, remembering the previous night.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” Sarah smirked and then became more serious. “How are you?”

“Fine,” He sighed, going through his slightly tangled hair with his fingers.

“Fine is not good though,” she said. “You look concerned.”

“Just a bit tired maybe. Your kiddo is really energetic,” He brushed her off and stood up, followed by Sarah.

“Call me if you have any problems, okay?” She hugged him goodbye and opened the door.

“Of course,” Dan smiled and walked out, taking his bicycle to the pavement before throwing his leg over and starting to ride it towards his apartment.

Half an hour later, lying in bed, he pulled out his phone and opened up the message from his landlord.

_[Sorry, Dan, but the rent is going to be higher from now on. It’s going to be like that for the whole summer but then hopefully I’ll be able to lower it. I’ll come over in ten days.]_

Dan sighed and rubbed his eyes, hoping that his boss would allow him to take more hours.


	2. Chapter 2

Dan woke up to his phone notifying him about a new message. He sighed and buried his head deeper in his pillow hoping that the world would give him another five years to have a rest. The world, however, had other plans and Dan’s phone beeped again. He groaned and stretched out his arm searching for his phone in his sheets. He squinted his eyes at a painfully bright screen and read the message from Mike.

[I’m picking you up in 40]

He stared at the message for good 5 seconds before saying “Fuck no” out loud and tossing his phone away. He was mad at his boyfriend and he definitely didn’t want to see him first thing in the morning before going to work.

Despite all, Dan still needed to get up if he didn’t want to be late, so he rolled out of bed and went to take a shower. He was really sweaty from yesterday’s amount of activity he did, so cool water rushing down his body felt like a fresh start.

He stripped down and stepped into the bathtub, showerhead up on the wall. He set up the right temperature and got under the stream of water letting it cover him from head to toes. Dan sighed and pressed his head against the tiled wall loving the contrast between hot water and cold ceramic. He let his body to absorb the water to the point when his skin became crinkly before starting to scrub himself. It felt nice – shower has always been something that cleaned up his thoughts as well.

Once he stepped out of the shower, Dan walked to the sink to brush his teeth. When he lifted his hand with a toothbrush in it, his eyes caught the sign of blue and purple forming bracelets on his wrists. He went through the cabinet and fished out a concealer that he had bought around two years ago. He put it all over his wrists in an attempt to cover up his bruises, but it did not work. Sure, it wasn’t as bright as earlier but it still was visible.

Dan ended up deciding on putting a flannel over his t-shirt hoping that it wouldn’t be too hot today. Just as he finished making up his bed, his phone rang making him take a deep breath because he had to be a complete idiot to not understand who was calling him. He pressed the phone against his ear and put his keys in his pocket.

“I’m outside,” said Mike and hung up. No “hello”, just like that, leaving no opportunity for Dan to even take a breath before saying something in response. He put the phone away and rubbed his face with his hands, sighing heavily before stepping out of his small flat accompanied by the sound of light being switched off.

He closed the door and went down the stairs, his hair still a little bit wet from showering. He didn’t like blow dryers – they made his hair rather rusty, so he grew used to walking around with his curls being slightly damp. He stepped out of his building and had to immediately cover his eyes – the laughable amount of sleep he was getting didn’t do anything good to his eyes’ sensitivity. In the bright of the Californian sun, he saw his boyfriend’s car with three people in the backseat. Dan sighed and walked around the car, opening a passenger’s door, sliding inside of the car and putting down his sunshade.

“Hi Dan,” said one of Mike’s friends from the back. Dan looked in the mirror and saw Josh staring at him right back with the exact mocking smirk that has always been driving Dan mad. He decided to ignore the guy and turned his head left to look at the beach they were driving by. “Did our little princess become mute overnight?” Josh continued, not even trying to hide the fact that he was enjoying playing on Dan’s nerves.

“Shut up, Josh,” Mike said, turning the wheel left and starting to drive down the street where Dan’s workplace was located. Dan looked at him with surprised expression but didn’t get anything back since his boyfriend was concentrated on driving.

When they pulled off at the little café, Mike looked at him and asked if they could talk. Dan nodded and they both got out of the car, leaving three guys to sit there and enjoy the view.

“Hey, I wanted to apologize for yesterday,” Mike said. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” The question threw Dan off a little – it wasn’t a common thing for his boyfriend to ask. If anything, it made him smile a little when he saw the same expression on Mike’s face. He looked gentle and soft, which made Dan want to reach out for his freshly shaved cheek. When his fingers touched Mike’s skin, he felt Mike’s lips on his but it didn’t last long.

“I’m going to have a party this weekend. Will you come?” Mike tilted his head.

“Sure,” Dan said. He hated those parties but he had no choice. It would look bad if you didn’t show up for your own boyfriend’s party, even though you knew right away that it wasn’t going to be a pleasant night out. “Can I bring someone?” At least he wouldn’t suffer through the whole thing on his own.

“Of course,” Mike smiled at him and pecked him on his lips before turning around and walking back towards the car. “I’ll stop by during your break,” he said before driving away. Dan followed the car with his eyes until it disappeared at the corner of the street and walked to the café with a warm feeling in his chest. He loved it when Mike showed his affection.

Dan was the first staff member to get to work, so he opened the café and started to put down the chairs that were left hanging from the tables after yesterday’s floor moping routine. In twenty minutes another waitress, Gabi, showed up and they both continued to make the café look presentable for the visitors. They had a nice spot – it was nearby the beach and they had a tent on the outside, so people could eat outside in the shadow and enjoy the faint ocean breeze. The building was pastel purple, almost lavender, which attracted a lot of kids reminding them of cotton candy and a lot of Instagram bloggers, who were willing to take a picture just for the sake of aesthetics and maybe actually walk in to get some ice-cream or something more proper meal-like.

Today was a particularly sunny day, which meant a lot of customers. Once they’ve changed their sign to “Opened”, the place became somewhat crowded with early surfers or people who stopped to have a quick breakfast before moving on with their days. The hotter it gets – the more people don’t feel like cooking, so they just have one big rush hour that lasts for the whole 12 hours shift. Their usual schedule was like that, although in reality, they were open until the last customer.

The morning hours are always overwhelming, to say the least, so Dan was truly glad to hide in the back room once it was time for his break. Mike had stopped by a few minutes earlier and surprised Dan with a lunch bag. Usually, during his breaks, they would talk about where they’re going to meet the next time they’d be able to see each other but today from the very morning his boyfriend was suspiciously out of character. Dan just assumed that he indeed felt bad for his yesterday’s behaviour. In the end, he still was grateful for the food, so he sent a quick thank you text message right before his back finally hit the cold surface of the wall right under the cooler. If his job wasn’t exhausting enough, the famous Californian heat didn’t make it easier, so every single worker tried to hide somewhere cold once they’ve gotten an opportunity.

Dan finished eating and fished out his phone to call PJ. Since they had breaks at the exact same time, they’ve developed this habit of calling each other in the middle to either rant about rude people or share some recent news that both haven’t had a chance to talk about yet.

“Hey Danny,” PJ greeted him, his voice slightly corrupted by both of their phones. “How are you doing?”

“Great, actually,” Dan responded. His fingers had already travelled towards his curls – he always played with them during phone calls just to keep his hands busy. PJ once said that it was his constant state of nervousness showing up and he didn’t even feel like he had a right to argue. “Not fired yet and my shirt is still clean, surprisingly. Mike brought me lunch today.”

“He brought you lunch?” Dan could hear by the tone that PJ’s eyebrows went up after this. “And of course you haven’t confronted him about yesterday,” his friend sounded tired. He had made a lot of hints about Dan needing to split up with his boyfriend and Dan would almost allowing this thought to exist but then Mike would do something like bring him lunch or something down the alley, which would make Dan indifferent to PJ’s words, at least until the next not-so-nice thing happens.

“No, we talked about something else,” Dan shifted a little because his skinny bum was bringing him discomfort every time he found himself sitting. “He’s throwing a party this weekend. I can bring anyone, so I figured I’d ask if you wanna come?”

“Oh Dan, I’m sorry but I really doubt that I’ll be able to make it. We’re meeting with our partners both on Saturday and on Sunday, so I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on this one,” he sounded genuinely sad. PJ loved hanging out with Dan just as much as he hated missing out on an opportunity. “Call me if you get bored or if something happens, I’ll still have your back.”

After making Dan promise that he would tell him everything about the party and call if something happens, PJ told him about his workday and about some new details that came up recently, so now they had to make slight changes in the project they were currently working on. It wasn’t anything big, so he was positive that they would make it on time. Just as he finished talking about his work, Dan saw his boss enter his office through a little window in the door. He said his quick goodbye to PJ and emerged from his cool shelter to talk to the person he currently depended on the most.

Jack was a really nice and understanding guy, so everything went as smooth as possible. Thanks to their electronic system, it was easy for their boss to see how many hours have each member of stuff worked for, so he reassured Dan about paying him $22 for every extra hour of work. Jack hasn’t always been the owner of the café, he started as a waiter himself, which meant that he was extremely kind to those in need of some extra money.

Dan’s day went slowly after his break – people started to come because they wanted to save themselves from the heat or they were going home after classes. The place got crowdy and loud, which wasn’t exactly the thing that a certain child was particularly enjoying.

“Hello, what can I get you?” Dan asked with his signature smile. He figured that the friendlier you are the higher your chances to get some tips, so he made sure to do his best at looking like a ray of sunshine even if his legs were sore and his head was about to burst into million pieces.

“We’ll have a fruit salad,” a nice-looking man pointed on himself and a woman who was, as Dan thought, his wife. “And this little guy will have some fish and chips.” Dan was slightly surprised by the fact that they’ve ordered a hot dish for the boy but he didn’t bat an eyelid because, in the end, it wasn’t any of his business.

“And what would you like to drink?”

“Just some lemonade, please.” Dan had already started to put his notepad into his apron when the little boy looked at him and whined something illegible.

“Excuse me?” Dan asked with a little smile while bending a little in order to hear what the boy was saying.

“Do you have some toys? Can I order a toy?” His big doe eyes looked at Dan timidly.

“No, I’m sorry but you can’t order a toy here,” Dan responded.

“Excuse him sir,” the head of the family spoke sending the boy a look.

“But daddy, I want to order a toy,” the boy whined looking back at him.

“No, Luke.”

Dan just walked away, figuring that it was the only choice he had. He placed the order on their order counter and proceeded to do his job. When he went back to collect the order, he remembered something and went into the staff room, getting a questioning look from Gabi. He didn’t say anything and walked back out of the room in five seconds before picking up the tray and waltzing between the tables to the family with the little boy.

“Some lemonade,” he said right after he placed down a decanter, “your fruit salads, your fish and chips and,” he lowered the tray so the little boy could see the surface, “your toy, sir,” Dan nodded and smiled politely before placing a dinosaur next to the boy’s plate. “Unfortunately, we don’t serve toys but you were lucky to be complemented by our chef. Enjoy your meal,” he drifted his gaze towards the parent to make sure it was okay and after acknowledging their smiles he winked at the boy, disappearing from their sight. The family hadn’t ordered anything else, so he only returned to the table twice – to give them their check and to collect the change. When he opened a little book, he saw $20 and a little childish drawing of a dinosaur on the check. Dan smiled and put both things into his apron feeling like the rest of the evening would go well.

The café was empty because both customers and staff had left. It was half an hour past the closing hour, so Dan found himself cleaning up and putting all of the chairs up. If he wanted to get more money he had to stay and close the place but before doing so it also was his duty to return everything back to its place. He was putting up a chair when he heard a sound of their front door opening.

“Um, hi. Are you still working?” there was a male voice accompanying unsure footsteps, which were moving closer to Dan.

“Yes,” Dan sighed but turned around and smiled at the guy with his professional smile. “What can I get you?” he asked the guy nearby him. He noted that the guy was really pale, which meant that he probably was a tourist who was coming back to the place he was staying in but decided to get something to fill up his stomach.

“A chocolate ice cream cone with whatever toppings you prefer,” the guy smiled and Dan figured out that he was British because it was hard to miss the kind of accent he had.

“Sure,” Dan nodded and gestured towards their bar. “You can take a sit over here while I’m making your order, it won’t be that long,” he smiled again and disappeared behind the kitchen door.

He went to the ice cream machine and loaded it with the chocolate one straight from the nearby freezer. Dan put the ice cream into a cone and moved towards the cupboards where he knew where all the different ice cream and cupcake toppings. He settled on white chocolate chips and rainbow sprinkles, which complemented each other nicely on top of the cone. After adding some extra chocolate syrup, he closed cupboards with one hand and returned back to the hall.

When he walked out, he had immediately noticed that those chairs what he hadn’t finished organizing were now put up while the guy was standing next to the bar like nothing happened.

“Your ice cream, sir,” he handed the cone to the guy. He thought for a split second but then decided to ask him about chairs. “Did you put up the chairs for me?” he tried but couldn’t quite conceal the surprise in his tone.

“No, I didn’t,” he responded calmly, looking straight into Dan’s eyes. “You just probably had a hard day at work, so you don’t remember,” he smiled softly, his gaze tracing over the cone. “Sprinkles, white chocolate and syrup?” the guy asked, his eyebrows lifting. Dan had already felt a knot in his stomach getting formed because he felt really bad every time the customer wasn’t satisfied with their order. And if usually he could inform the chef about them complaining, right now it would be entirely his fault. He had started to think that maybe it was too sweet for the guy when he was suddenly greeted with a beaming smile from the British tourist. “Thank you so much,” he said gratefully and handed Dan $20. Dan started to ruffle through his apron in order to give the guy his change but he was waved at, which could only mean that he was keeping it to himself.

“That’s my job,” Dan smiled tiredly at him.

“It really isn’t, Dan,” the guy said, already in the middle of opening the front door. When he walked out of the café, he picked the sign with his fingers and turned it over so it was saying “Closed”. He looked at Dan through the window and smiled one last time before walking away. After he disappeared, Dan’s vision refocused on his reflection in the glass. He looked at himself and realized that he still had his waiter’s pin on with “Dan” written on it. Dan just sighed, rubbed his tired eyes and went back to the kitchen because he had an ice cream machine to clean.


	3. Chapter 3

The humid air was probably going to kill him one day, or so Dan thought. If PJ were here, he would argue that it was impossible unless Dan had asthma, which he didn’t, but he wasn’t here, so Dan was able to dwell on the weather being unfair to him, sitting in the backroom with his back against a spare freezer.

“Listen, literally no one forced you to move here,” said Gabi, flopping onto the floor right next to him. “Good thing we at least get to cool down in this place. Some other waiters aren’t that lucky,” she nudged Dan with her elbow. He just sighed in response and closed his eyes, both of them remaining sitting under a conditioner for the whole break.

Dan was constantly checking his phone because he was already 20 minutes into his break and yet there was no sign of Mike’s usual presence to be found.

“What are you, fifteen?” Gabi asked with an annoyed groan.

“Excuse me?”

“Just call him already,” she lifted her eyebrows and gave him her famous unimpressed look, after which all Dan had left to do is comply. He dilated a number he had memorized a while ago but this time there was no response on the other side, other than a robotic voice informing Dan that Mike was currently unavailable.  “No luck?” Gabi asked and, after receiving a headshake, put her hand on Dan’s knee for support and got up. “Come on, time is up. You can go find your man afterwards.” Dan helped himself up with Gabi’s extended arm, making a note in his head to stop by Mike’s house after he’s done with his work for today.

The day is uneventful, which Dan decides to be both good and bad. It’s good because he doesn’t get stressed out, yet it’s bad because sometimes it gets pretty boring. Just like today – he was rather busy since the place was crowded, yet he wished for something interesting to happen. And, well, eventually, it did.

A rush hour is always a challenge for every single person. Customers try to find seats to have dinner and staff members try to reach the speed of a spaceship to at least keep up with taking orders, not even mentioning actually bringing them to people. Dan’s already said his “what can I get you” over 200 times this day when he passes by a table near the entrance while delivering an order to one big company. He tries to move very quickly, which is not exactly his smartest decision, especially since the door he’s passing by has a tendency to open sometimes. He almost loses his balance when someone walks inside, so in order to keep it, he has to step towards another table.

When he does, his eyes automatically scan the people sat there – all of them being really pale and men being really tall from what he can figure while they’re sat down. His gaze slides across their faces and he already starts walking to the table he needs, when he pauses and turns his head back. There he is - that British guy from the day before, sat with presumably his family, smiling and giving him a wave of acknowledgement.

With having nothing else as an option since his hands are busy with a heavy tray full of plates and drinks, he smiles politely in response and proceeds to move towards his table. Having finally delivered their order and not seeing anyone in need of a waiter, he hurries to the back of the dining hall and stops next to the bar. He almost drops his tray full of dirty plates and glasses, when he hears someone greet him loudly.

“Hello there!” PJ says from behind.

“Dear God,” Dan exclaims, flinching at the unexpected noise.

“For friends, it’s just PJ,” PJ winks and laughs after Dan gives him the one-eyebrow-raised “really?” stare. “Who’s that guy smiling at you? He’s cute.” Dan’s eyes involuntary drew back to the table where the said guy sat with his family, enjoying their meal. “Are you actually interested in someone who’s not Mike?” PJ’s tone dropped down to a more serious one, his gaze fixating on Dan’s face.

“No, Jesus,” Dan waves his hand at him dismissively. “He’s just a random guy who stopped by yesterday after the closing hour to get some ice-cream, that’s it. I don’t even know his name.”

“Well, if you say so…” PJ trailed off, hopping onto a bar stool next to Dan.

“Why are you even here, by the way? I thought you were, like, crazy busy with your project.” Dan gives him a quizzical stare while putting all of the dirty dishes on a counter next to the bar.

“Finished earlier today. What time are you off? There’s a couple of new movies out, I thought maybe we could go see one of them,” PJ looked at Dan with a content grin on his face, looking all excited, so Dan immediately felt bad about what he had to say.

“Actually,” Dan started, avoiding PJ’s eyes, “I’ll probably finish around midnight.”

“What do you mean?” PJ tilted his head like a puppy.

“I’m working over my shift. The rent is higher now,” Dan said with a sigh and sat down next to PJ after looking around and making sure that he there was no work that needed to be done.

“Why on earth is it higher? I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to make you pay even more every now and then for no reason,” PJ said with annoyance tracing heavily through his expression. “Have you tried talking to your landlord or something? You know that you could sue him, right?”

“It’s not like that,” Dan blurted out before PJ got himself too worked up about it. “I was the one who suggested he would do that. He gives me all of the extra money back a bit later.” After these words, PJ looked at Dan as his friend has lost the last bit of sanity he had.

“What?” he asked slowly in a way you try to interact with a wild animal. His expression didn’t help, so he earned a nudge from Dan’s side. “Ow! I’m sorry, but you do sound pretty insane to me. Don’t be violent or I’ll report you,” he joked, massaging the spot on his arm that Dan hit.

“His daughter has cancer. They are trying to find medicaments that would suit her condition and actually work, so they have to buy a new set of drugs if the other one didn’t work out even if they’ve used only like three pills,” Dan spoke with a frown. He looked at PJ and took in his sceptic eyebrow raise. “I’ve met her. And I’ve visited her at her hospital. They’re not scamming me, PJ. And I’ve told you that they always give me the money back. Besides, they invite me to come over for dinners sometimes.”

It was true. The situation seemed super sketchy and Dan knew it, but it only seemed so. The girl, Violet, was the sweetest. They’ve met before cancer hit her, so when he heard the news, Dan was devastated himself. A couple of months into her therapy, he noticed that her dad stopped wearing nice clothes and stopped driving a car. He looked exhausted and almost unhealthy skinny, so Dan offered the best help he could give. He didn’t regret it even once, especially after seeing Violet’s parents cry in relief because the medicine worked for the first time.

“Dan?” PJ snapped his fingers in front of Dan’s face.

“Yeah, sorry,” Dan spoke, startled, “I zoned out. What were you saying?”

“I was saying that I should probably head home if you’re busy. Are you okay with that?” PJ bit his lip and lifting his eyebrows, encouraging Dan to speak up if he wanted him to hang around for a little longer.

“Yeah, it’s fine, you can go, I won’t be mad or anything. I have to call Mike anyway,” Dan reassured PJ, sliding down from his seat and taking a cloth from behind the bar.

“Why would you need to call him? You’ve seen him literally two hours ago, didn’t you?” PJ eyed him, so Dan just made a face that said it all. “Oh.”

“He’s probably just busy, I don’t know. Don’t worry, I’m not going to throw away my apron at some random customer and start running around the city in order to find my missing prince,” Dan made sure to clarify. “Now go, I don’t get paid for spending my time with you,” he waved PJ off, starting to wipe some of the wet glasses.

“That would be nice though,” PJ sighed before waving his hand and walking away, promising to call him after midnight to ask if he got home same. PJ was like an older brother to Dan – always caring and keeping an eye on him, which was immensely endearing yet sometimes embarrassing, just like one time when PJ argued with a theme park employee over her not wanting to make a balloon sword for Dan. To tell the truth, Dan was carrying the thing around the park for three hours after that.

After PJ was gone, Dan immediately fished his phone out of his pocket and tried calling Mike again. Just like the last time, he didn’t succeed, so he put it back and took a look around the café. Apparently, he had missed the moment when the British guy and his family headed off, leaving him with nothing even remotely interesting to lay his eyes upon. With that, he proceeded to wipe other glasses dry until it was his turn to escort a company to their table.

The rest of the evening was boring and rather exhausting, his worries about Mike adding up to a physical tiredness. PJ always said that it was unhealthy, that he should stop worrying so much about Mike’s whereabouts but that’s because he simply didn’t know the whole story.

The thing is, Mike was mentally unstable due to his childhood. More specifically, one time he left his house with Dan still in it at 7 am and drove his car into the hills. Dan tried asking him where he was heading, to which Mike responded: “to get some gasoline, I think”. The uncertainty of “I think” threw Dan off and made every single internal bell inside of him to ring with panic. An hour and a half later Dan finally managed to contact Mike again only to find out that he was lost in the hills, his car crashed and he himself wandering around trying to find a way out. It took Dan around 3 calls to 911 and two hours of trying to get his location via google maps before Mike returned home. To this day, they both don’t quite know what happened, but it was one of the most terrifying experiences for Dan. Mike was out of it for two weeks after the incident, acting suspicious and seeming paranoid even. Somehow, Dan had managed to talk him into going to see a therapist, which then only revealed a whole set of mental illnesses on different stages of progressing. So, whenever Dan was worried about his boyfriend, he had every single right to.

The café was already closed and Dan had finished tidying everything up. However, he felt rather tempted about getting some blueberry pancakes and he didn’t have blueberry at home, so he skimmed through a couple of fridges, dag out all of the ingredients and started cooking after putting $5 for the ingredients into their counter. He cleaned up after himself right away and went back to the main hall, sitting down behind one of the closest to the backroom tables.

It was slightly weird to be here after the place closed down. Too quiet, too weird, too lonely perhaps. Dan placed his plate in front of him and, while taking small bites of his pancakes, let his gaze wander around. There is one particular table that’s always occupied by a girl with a laptop in early morning hours. She’s always writing something, and Dan makes sure to add a little bit of extra whip cream to her coffee whenever he’s taking their barista’s shift.  There’s a kids area – a place that hurts your eyes if you look for too long, different toys in three plastic boxes, sheets of paper and crayons for bored kids to entertain themselves. The table Dan is sat behind is slightly chipped on one corner – that’s because Gabi had tripped once and managed to knock the table down in order to find some support. The place has a lot of stories behind every single insignificant crack in the tile, and Dan was about to go with a flow of his brain bringing up all sorts of memories, both good and bad when he heard a knock on the door.

He made sure to change the sign after closing the door, so he felt a tiny sting of anxiety. When he turned his head, however, he saw the British guy waving at him and moving his body as if to ask if he can come in. Dan’s eyes involuntary find their way towards a clock on the wall next to the entrance and, after seeing that it’s almost half past eleven, he just sighs and gets up to let the guy in. He makes a note in his head to learn how to say no to people while approaching the door.

“Hi,” the guy says with an apologetic smile on his face. “I see that you’ve even changed the sign, so I totally understand if you want me to leave,” he rambled. His accent was a stereotypical one, so Dan figured that the guy was probably from the north.

“No, it’s fine. Come in,” Dan offered, holding a door for him to slip inside. “Another ice cream?”

“Um, I don’t…” he trailed off, eyes falling onto Dan’s plate with unfinished blueberry waffles. “Could you make me some blueberry pancakes?” The guy beamed at him, turning around and putting his hands in his front pockets.

“You’re not the type that goes for a healthy option,” Dan chuckled before realizing that the remark may have been rude. “Sorry, I didn’t…” he started apologizing but got interrupted by the guy’s laughter.

“Who am I to disagree?” he put down a chair to the opposite of Dan and sat down to wait.

“I travel the world and seven seas,” Dan proceeded quietly, beginning his walk towards the kitchen.

“Everybody’s looking for something,” the guy sang a bit off-tune, drumming his fingers against the surface of the table. Dan turned his head and smiled at that. “It’s Phil, by the way,” is the last thing that he hears before disappearing behind the doors.

When Dan walked out carrying a plate of blueberry pancakes, he saw Phil messing with a napkin in front of him.

“Your napkins are really hard to fold. I’ve been trying to make a swan but it looks like a poor bird was hit by a car,” Phil said once Dan had placed the plate in front of him and sat down.

“Do you want me to contact my manager?” Dan teased, sensing that Phil wouldn’t mind a bit of banter.

“Yes. Tell them that some people fold napkins and not money,” Phil said, trying to keep a straight face but failing and letting a smirk form on his lips before taking a fork and trying his food. “These are amazing,” he exclaimed, his eyes getting bigger. “My compliments to the chief,” he smiled, his tongue peeking slightly from behind his teeth.

“Done,” Dan nodded and continued finishing his own plate. “What’s up with you getting sweets this late? Sorry if that’s intrusive, you just seem like a tourist to me.”

“It’s fine. You see, I have a really pale skin,” Phil pointed to his arm, “so I don’t really like being outside that much because then I just turn into a lobster,” he sounded pretty salty about that, so Dan chuckled in response. “Although I quite enjoy sightseeing, so I walk around in the evening. And, well, I just have a sweet tooth.”

Phil was a rather talkative guy, so he kept telling Dan about all of the places he had gone to separately from his family while finishing off his pancakes. It wasn’t at all as awkward as Dan feared it would be, so he just sat there listening, noting to himself that even he hasn’t been to all of the places Phil was listing off. They just sat like that, talking about different places that are worth visiting, until Phi looked at the clock and got up to leave.

“Thanks for the pancakes,” he smiled at Dan, handing him $25. “They were delightful.”

“Okay, let me give you your change,” Dan started to stand up but was cut off.

“I know that they’re not on the menu, Dan,” Phil blinked at him. “That’s how much it should cost to have a time that I had in here for these forty minutes.

“No, that’s ridiculous. You had already paid too much for the ice cream, I’m not letting you put your money to waste,” Dan argued, shifting his chair and getting up properly this time when he was yet again interrupted by Phil, who was shushing him this time.

“That’s…” he continued speaking but immediately stopped when he looked Phil in the face. His eyes were wide open, brows furrowed and there was not a single hint on him being anything rather than serious.

“I think I’ve heard something in the backroom,” he whispered to Dan, pressing his finger against his own lips to make Dan quiet. Dan’s mind started racing because there indeed was a backdoor, which he didn’t remember checking before closing the place. “I’m going to get my phone ready to call the cops while you go and check, deal?” Phil proceeded in a barely audible voice, looking spooked.

Dan just nodded and quietly, step by step, walked over to the door. He flipped the switch on and pushed the door slightly, ready to run back at any moment if he hears a sound. His heart started to beat fast and he could almost hear it in the quiet of the café, which certainly wasn’t helpful in this particular situation. He took a deep breath and pushed the door all the way in, stepping inside of the room and carefully eyeing every single place where it was possible for a person to hide. After a couple of minutes filled with an intense staring contest with kitchen utilities, Dan walked around and, making sure that the back door was closed, stepped outside of the backroom. He did it only to find Phil missing, with $25 still on the table next to a successfully made swan.

Dan walked closer to the table, sat down and, while looking at the remains of Phil’s presence, asked himself how actually weird his encounter was, especially counting it as a second time some random British guy participating in this charity event for a poor waiter. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're down for some oneshot angst, you can check out [Supermarket Flowers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13552716).


	4. Chapter 4

“Are all British people weird?” is the first thing Dan says to PJ, plumping his torso down on his bed right after closing the door of his apartment behind himself.

“And what exactly is that supposed to mean?” PJ asks him on the other side of the town, Dan basically hearing his indulgent smirk.

“I don’t know, he’s just…” Dan sighed, ruffling his own curls. He really liked the feeling of tight locks against his fingers. It reminded him of a family dog that he had when he was only a child. In times of stress, especially when he needed to brainstorm, his hands would always find their way into his hair, leaving him with a nest on top of his head in less than five minutes. It was a good tool for concentration or, like now, for easing yourself after a long day. He wished he could get a head massage, those were on top of his list of things for relaxation.

“Dan?” PJ said, ripping him out of his thoughts.

“Sorry, I got lost. What were you saying?” he apologized, lifting himself up from the bed only to undress and crawl back under the covers right away, leaving shower for yesterday morning.

“Who is ‘he’?” PJ repeated the question, accenting the word, after an affectionate sigh that Dan was too familiar with to take it for the one of annoyance.

“The guy that you asked me about today,” Dan explained, bringing his phone to another ear because his left cheek began to sweat.

“Oh, the guy. So, he’s British. What’s weird about him?” PJ hummed in response, some shuffling coming through the speaker, so Dan pictured him trying to settle in his own bed.

“Well, first of all, he throws money at me like he had accidentally mistaken dollars for cents. He literally gave me $45 for an ice cream and some blueberry pancakes and insisted on me keeping the change,” Dan shook his head and widened his eyes before remembering that PJ couldn’t see him. They used to FaceTime each other a lot but then Dan’s phone started losing battery way too quickly for them to hold a proper conversation. “Secondly, he is too friendly. I mean, not too friendly, I’m just not used to that. He’s open, I’d say,” he proceeded, tugging on his lower lip. “Today he sat right in front of me to eat the pancakes and told me all about the sightseeing he’s been doing like we’re old friends or something. And then he left me a swan that he made out of a napkin,” his gaze went towards the thing sitting on top of the kitchen counter, “which is pretty cool, actually. I’d like to learn how to do origami…”

“He sat right in front of you and you just let him do that?” PJ clarified, bewildered.

“PJ, he gave me a shit ton of money for no reason! That’s my prior concern,” Dan exclaimed, a little frustrated with his friend not picking up on the thing he was worried about.

“He could be ridiculously rich for all we know. But Dan, I’ve known you for years and you’ve never been anywhere near comfortable around a complete stranger which, I might add, seems not like a situation we have going on here,” PJ argued.

“He’s a foreigner,” Dan suggested, shrugging. “I have a thing when I become really friendly with foreigners because I think that they stress enough over being in another country, so why make their encounters unpleasant?” he asked like it was an obvious thing.

“Dan,” PJ sounded like he was trying to explain why the sun goes to sleep to someone really tough for an hour straight, “his native language is literally English.”

“Why are you attacking me?” Dan wasn’t a fan of the direction change in their conversation.

“Yeah, sorry. I just got surprised,” PJ seemed to be sincerely apologetic and to be fair, Dan understood where he was coming from. “Please continue.” Dan goes silent for a couple of moments, trying to formulate the exact words that would explain everything to PJ.

“Why would a rich person go inside of a café like that? There are other places right across the street that serve things more suitable for rich people.”

“Dan, you have a stereotypical perception of rich people,” PJ assured him softly.

“Well, I’ve never been one,” Dan said with a sad chuckle.

Eventually, after they’ve jumped between topics, Dan became less active and started to doze off, so PJ wrapped his talking up and quietly called for Dan’s name.

“What?” he mumbled in response, his head already buried in his pillow.

“Your birthday is coming up,” PJ spoke, his voice hush as if he was trying not to disturb Dan’s almost-sleeping form.

“Mhm.”

“What do you want?” PJ sounded eager. Dan never understood why, but he always would get really excited about Dan’s birthday, even if he never really celebrated it. He guessed PJ was just a great friend.

“I want to have a nice mojito and a day off,” Dan smiled tiredly into the pillow, his face getting scrunched up by the surface of it.

“You are precious,” PJ chuckled. He waited for Dan to say something in response but all he heard was deep breaths, so he whispered his goodnight to Dan and ended the call, letting his friend rest.

When Dan wakes up, there’s light pouring all over him. Despite that, he feels like he had only slept for forty minutes. Still, things don’t do themselves, so he detaches his phone from his cheek and opens Uber. The closest car is five minutes away, so soon enough he storms out of the building after picking yesterday’s outfit from the floor, throwing it on and brushing his teeth in a rush, sending little specks of toothpaste flying all over the mirror.

His driver appears to be not a talkative person, so after he gets Dan’s parents’ house address, he turns up the volume on the radio, shutting down any possibilities of a small talk, which makes Dan let out the breath he didn’t know was held back.

When he arrives and steps out of the car, one look at the house is enough for him to know that his parents are currently at work and his younger brother is at school – there is simply the lack of cars. Having that information, he decides that the best thing to do right now is to go to sleep through his tiredness and crawl out of his room when the house isn’t empty anymore.

Waking up for the second time on the same day for sure brings some disorientation upon Dan. He blinks a few times, unable to register his location quite yet, before remembering that he’s in his room. He can hear some chatter from the first floor, which means that his family is home. Once he looks around, he notices that someone had put a stack of clothes on top of his desk, so they all know that he’s home.

Dan then rubbed the remains of sleep out of his eyes and, after putting on the clean clothes, walked downstairs. His dad and brother were sat behind the table and his mom was finishing preparing the dish next to their stove.

“Hi Dan,” Michael gave him a cheeky grin that almost split his face in half. If anything, his brother really loved him, for which Dan was unbelievably grateful.

“Hi buddy,” he ruffled Michael’s hair, sitting down next to him. “Hi mom and dad,” he then proceeded, smiling at both of his parents.

“Hi Dan,” his mom said, picking up mashed potatoes and settling the pot on a coaster right in the centre of the table. “We were about to wake you up, so it’s good we didn’t have to disturb you.”

“A rough night?” his dad asked, filling all of the plates with food.

“Indeed,” Dan nodded then and at that, they all fell into a usual banter until the plates were clean.

Having helped his mom with cleaning up, Dan hurried upstairs. He didn’t have time lately to use his laptop and check some of the websites, so he put one folded leg on his computer chair, sat down on it and put the other one up, making himself comfortable. It was a weird habit of his – trying to climb up different surfaces at any time possible. To tell the truth, there had been a lot of falling before his parents bought him a proper chair.

While on Facebook, Dan traced his fingers through his curls and noticed that his hair was starting to get gross, remembering that he didn’t take a shower last night.  With a sigh, he got up, grabbed his towel from a drawer and went to the bathroom.

Five minutes into him showering and trying to understand why does his shower gel smell like mushrooms when it’s out of the bottle but completely fine when inside and after rinsing the soapy stuff off, someone knocked on the door, which made startled Dan drop the bottle.

“Dan, I need scissors,” his dad shouted then, trying to sound louder than the streams of water. “Where can I get them?”

“On the desk,” Dan guided him, bending down and picking the bottle.

He was done nearly in a couple of minutes, drying his curls off with a towel. He put his sweatpants and a hoodie back on and, having turned on the ventilation, exited the bathroom, putting his towel in a dryer.

When Dan walked back into his room, the atmosphere seemed really heavy. He didn’t really understand why right away, staring at his dad dumbfounded. As seconds passed, Dan’s mind wrapped itself around the whole situation, making Dan feel sick.

His dad was staring at his laptop screen, face blank, one of his head put loosely on the scissors. To clarify, there was a private LGBTQ+ Facebook group and God, were Dan’s parents religious.

Dan was sure that his face has lost its colour, a horrified expression sprawled across his features. His dad slowly turned his head at Dan, gaze and jaw firm. His nostrils were flared with anger, his mouth formed a barely-there thin line, yet his upper lip still noticeably twitching.

“What, in the God’s name, is this?” he spoke calmly. If Dan was scared before, now he was genuinely feeling like he was capable of passing out, with his gut tied up in tight knots, causing him physical pain. Dan just focused his eyes on the floor, not having that kind of strength to meet his father’s piercing eyes. “We have been serving to God for our whole lives, living by his words, going to church for _this_? For my son to disgustingly sin, cover our family name in dirt of shame and lose any possibility of going to heaven?” he began raising his voice, at which Dan winced, hoping that this wouldn’t be enough for the rest of the family to come up here to find out what was going on.

“Wearing different fabrics is also a sin,” Dan argued, immediately regretting having a smart mouth. His eyes went wide with terror, his hand flying upwards to slap himself on the mouth, but since the first syllable had slid down his lips he realized that he just dug himself a grave.

“Don’t you dare!” his dad shouted at him, his face showing the expression of deep offence and disgust.

If Dad didn’t already want to shrink down to the size of an atom, he wanted to full-on disappear the moment after.

“What’s going on?” his mother’s concerned voice entered the room, herself and Michael stepping inside afterwards.

“Our son is a faggot!” his dad yelled again, some of his spit probably flying out of his mouth, but Dan couldn’t tell – he couldn’t look.

“I’m not, I’m bisexual,” he then tried the best thing he could come up with. He thought that the fact that he’s still attracted to girls might soothe a situation to a certain degree, but he didn’t realize how wrong he was.

He lifted his eyes to look at his dad with a pleading expression and he laid his gaze on his face just in time to see it go to the deepest shade of red, even some of the blood vessels in his eyes getting visible, a vein on his temple pulsating rapidly.

“Get out of my house!” he spits right in Dan’s face. While Dan just stands there, unable to move or actually start thinking properly, his dad grabs his closes that were hung on the back of his chair and throws them to his feet. “Get,” he moves closer to the wall and tears apart all of the posters that have men on them individually, presses the ripped paper into a ball and hits Dan with it right in his chest, “out,” he then proceeds moving towards his dresser and starts throwing all of Dan’s belongings out of it, “of,” he steadies his voice a little, getting a grip of Dan’s CD’s and throwing them on the floor with a significant force, filling the room up with a sound of shattering plastic boxes, “my,” the books suffer next, being tossed away from the shelf, “house!” he explodes finally, his whole being now is nothing more than a pure rage, when he grabs the laptop and throws it at Dan, hitting his ankle pretty hard, yet Dan stays silent. “You have thirty minutes,” his Dad then informs him with a tone so cold it actually sends shivers down Dan’s spine. “I don’t want to see you or hear from you ever again,” he concludes and walks out of the room.

Dan lifts his head and through the blurry watery mess that his eyes are right now, he can see his mom walking away right behind, none of them looks back. Not seeing any reasons to why control the tears streaming down his face, he looks at his brother, who looks back with an unreadable expression, his eyes a little squinted as if in wonder.

Then Dan wakes up and brings his hands to his face in order to rub his tears into his skin as if someone could see him crying and being vulnerable.

In the end, sometimes recurring nightmares are just our brightest memories.


	5. Chapter 5

There are only so many things that a human can be bothered by at the same time, and it seems like Dan has reached his limit. He was sat in the backroom, fidgeting with his apron and trying to dilate Mike’s number for what seemed the hundredth time this morning.

Considering Mike’s past and the things that Dan had witnessed, the absence of his boyfriend became the major concern of his, all of the other things becoming just a background noise. This time, predictably, was no success either, so he hit himself in the forehead with his phone, frustration playing on his nerves. While he could blame his sweat on the heat, his quickening breath wasn’t related to any recent activity, so Dan was trying his hardest to remain calm and not slip into a panic attack.

The next best thing he knew he could possibly do was to call Mike’s best friend Pete, who was less of a douchebag than anyone else in their company. When he didn’t pick up after two first rings, Dan felt knots tying in his stomach, but when he finally heard Pete’s voice, he stopped clenching his jaw so hard – one of the bad habits of his, which worked as a coping mechanism for his stress.

“Hey Dan,” Pete grumbled, clearly just woken up. “What’s up?” he yawned, trying to hide the sound by seemingly putting his phone away for a moment.

“Hey Pete,” Dan exhaled, brushing his hand against his face. “Do you know where Mike is?”

His question was met with silence. The pause was almost too long for it to be normal when he finally heard Pete speak again, who was now fully awake if his tone was anything for Dan to judge by.

“Um, yeah, he—he just went to San Diego to buy something for his car because it sounds weird or something. He should be back soon. Tomorrow, actually. He left his phone at mine, I’ve seen you call him but haven’t thought of shooting you a text. Sorry mate,” he explained quickly.

“Oh… Okay then. Thanks for the info,” Dan said, relief filling his body. Mike indeed was a forgetful guy, so it really wasn’t surprising at all.

“No problem. Are you coming to the party, by the way?”

“Yep. See you there.”

“See you,” and then Pete was gone.

Only when he was listening to another customer’s order, he realized that Pete couldn’t possibly see Mike’s missed calls because his number was unavailable all the time, which meant that the phone was either turned off or in the aeroplane mode, so there was no way of him getting any notifications. He just froze on the spot, his mind running 100 miles per hour. He had already thought of 3 possible explanations – both good and horrible ones when he got pulled up from his sea of thoughts by a cough.

“My apologies,” he quickly reacted. “Could you please repeat your order?”

Dan’s mind was occupied with thoughts about his conversation with Pete for the rest of his shift. Even if Mike’s phone was in the aeroplane mode, why would he put it in it in the first place? And even if he did, why would Pete turn it off, check his missed calls and turn on again? Or if it was dead, why would Pete charge it, look at his missed calls and, once again, put it in the aeroplane mode straight after?

These questions were busying his entire brain, so he didn’t hear a knock on the door, drying the same glass for what seemed a couple of unnecessary minutes.

With the second knock, his gaze drifted from the glass to the door, seeing no one other than Phil waving at him timidly and wearing a grin on his lips. Dan sighed, put the glass on the bar and walked towards the door, giving Phil a quick smile while unlocking the door.

“Are you sure that you’re being paid enough for doing this?” Phil asked straight away, walking inside and past Dan, who was holding a door for him to enter.

“Who is, really?” Dan bitterly laughed, letting go of the door and already starting to move towards the kitchen. “What’s today? Some ice cream? Or a couple of blueberry pancakes?”

“Both. It’s hot as hell outside,” Phil huffed, settling down on one of the bar stools.

Dan looked at him in order to say “I know, right?” but quickly stopped in his tracks, his eyebrows going up quizzically at the sight of Phil’s wet hair. “Did you get thrown a bucket of water at or something?”

“No, I just sweat a lot,” Phil answered with a serious expression. Dan’s expression momentarily became apologetic, heat sprawling across his cheeks, but before any words could actually make their way out of his already opened mouth, Phil just laughed at him and shook his head. “Jesus, that was a joke. I just finished surfing and haven’t dried off yet, that’s it,” he smiled at Dan, obviously amused by his reaction.

Dan cocked his eyebrow at him and continued his walk to the kitchen, accompanied by the faint sound of Phil giggling.

“Have you ever tried surfing?” Phil asked after licking the fork, his mouth full of pancakes. Dan said that ice cream would melt by the time he finishes them off, to which Phil said that it wasn’t in that creamy consistency that he liked yet.

“No,” Dan shook his head, trying to clean up the bar. It seemed like someone spilt particularly sugary syrup, so now he was having some trouble getting the stickiness off the surface.

“Really?” Phil’s tone was surprised. “How come? You’ve lived here for how long?”

“A couple of years,” Dan mumbled to that, sighing and kneeling down to grab some powerful cleaning supplies.

“A couple of years in LA and you haven’t tried surfing. I mean, I kind of get that, because I feel like I haven’t been falling as much when I was learning how to walk,” Phil rambled, trying to cover his blush by leaning his head on his hand, “but still. You should at least do it once.”

“If there would be an opportunity – sure,” Dan easily agreed, scrubbing the bar intensely. What do they put in these syrups? Glue?

Phil looked at him, sucking on the fork thoughtfully with his eyes squinted ever slightly.

“Yeah.”

Phil then started to share his experience of today’s surfing class. Somewhere around him talking about how there was a poor guy who was too big for the costume, Dan fell back into his thoughts about Mike. He hasn’t called him after his conversation with Pete, figuring that it would be pretty useless, so he was stuck with no idea whatsoever where his boyfriend actually was and why would he just disappear without letting Dan know.

“You okay?” Phil’s voice interrupted him, snapping back to reality.

“Yeah, fine. Why?”

“You’ve been scrubbing the bar for the past ten minutes. Try again, it literally makes that screechy sound now.”

Dan, as advised, scrubbed it one more time before hearing it himself and therefore putting the cleaning supplies away. He was slightly concerned that this intense amount of chemistry damaged the coating, but it’s a problem for the next time to be solved.

“Just a tough day, sorry,” Dan apologized, clearly missing out on whatever Phil’s been talking about. He felt sincerely bad – the guy seemed genuinely nice, and he didn’t want to be rude, even though he found his obsession with throwing money on him weird.

“Oh, sorry for rambling then,” Phil put one corner of his mouth up. “I’m going to go then, don’t want to tire you out.”

“No, you don’t have to, I’m really sorry. I want to listen to the surfing story, I swear,” Dan argued, words quickly flying out of his mouth.

“Nah, it’s fine. It’s late anyway. I’ll just tell you when you are less tired,” Phil assured him and began to stand up. Only then Dan noticed that his plate was already empty.

“Right,” he agreed, rubbing his right eye and yawning, not being able to hide it.

“Goodnight Dan,” Phil smiled and put $25 dollars in a pocket on Dan’s white uniform shirt.

“No, don’t—,” Dan started arguing, his hand flying up to his pocket in order to give Phil some of his money back.

“ _Goodnight Dan_ ,” Phil repeated himself, with more power to his voice, leaving Dan no room for saying something against his actions.

“You are weird,” Dan informed, annoyance slipping through.

“Oh, I’m aware,” Phil smiled with his tongue slightly out and walked out of the door, waving him goodbye.

“Goodnight Phil,” Dan said then, once he was already outside. Bu the smile that followed, he figured that Phil could read lips pretty well.

The next day, while he was rearranging the tabled on the outside of the café, Dan heard a car honk. His head shot up, already annoyed at another bunch of people who decided that he dreamt of being catcalled, but his expression quickly changed to the clenched jaw and a thin line of lips, when his eyes met the person who sat in a car parked right in front of him.

He tried to maintain his anger, counting up to ten in his head while breathing in and then out after reaching the next number. He quickly looked back and, making sure that he could have a little break, walked towards the car.

Dan stood up in front of a driver’s door, cocking his eyebrow and involuntarily flaring his nostrils.

“Can you please sit down?” Mike asked him, looking him in the eyes after putting his sunglasses on his head in order to give Dan access to his eyes.

Dan obeyed and slipped on the passenger’s seat from the other side of the car. “Where have you been?”

“I thought Pete told you,” Mike shot his eyebrows up in surprise, looking Dan right in the eyes.

“What happened to your phone?” Dan proceeded, tapping his fingers on one of his knees. He followed Mike’s gaze that fell on his fingers, catching a hint of concern on his face for a split second before it disappeared.

Mike sighed and gently put his hand over Dan’s. “I forgot my phone at Pete’s and it was on low battery,” he explained, easing the pressure of his hand on Dan’s. “I’m sorry; he told me that you got worried.”

“Why didn’t you call me when you came back?” Dan shot, turning his whole body towards Mike.

“I just did. My bags are still in the backseat,” he nodded his head towards the back of the car, and Dan looked there only to realize that they indeed were still there, which meant that he hasn’t even been home yet.

“Okay,” Dan gave in, his body finally relaxing. Mike smiled at him and brought his hand to his head, putting one of the particularly wild curls away from his forehead, earning a slipping out smile that broke through Dan’s tight lips.

When he got out from the car and started to walk back, he heard a faint sound of a ringing phone, but when he turned back, Mike already took off. Dan stopped in his tracks and followed the disappearing car with his eyes, his state going back to normal when he heard some stranger say "Hello?" to their phone a second later.

The next place Dan found himself at was Mike’s house. He had to give Phil his pancakes in a paper bag this time, apologizing and saying that he really needed to go. Phil just smiled at him knowingly and wished him a good evening.

So, now Dan was sitting in a lounge, curled into the crease of Mike’s couch, sipping his drink that he is anything but sure in the ingredients of, watching Mike’s friends dance around in dim purple lights. If anything, Mike knew how to throw a party, so it wasn’t surprising to see what seemed like a good couple of dozens of people scattered around the house and some enjoying themselves on the outside. At this point, Dan just hoped that Mike would wash the sheets in those rooms that now were locked.

The songs were changing one by one, and Dan began to slip into the state of slight boredom. Mike, being a good host he is, was chatting with people here and there, making sure that they had a good time. It’s not like he had abandoned Dan – he could certainly help himself or grab Mike and keep him all to himself for the entire night, but that wasn’t on Dan’s current agenda.

Somewhere in the middle of a song, right after some girl only started to pull her shirt suspiciously high up while dancing with a particularly muscular friend of Mike’s, Dan heard the front door open, immediately turning his head towards the entrance.

Once he saw who now has joined the crowd, he quickly stood up, almost splashing his drink everywhere but managing to catch the balance, and walked towards PJ, meeting him with a wide i-am-not-so-sober grin.

“Hi Curly,” PJ smiled at him, immediately grabbing the drink from Dan’s hand and trying it out. “Who made it?” he asked then, giving the cup back to Dan.

“No idea,” he smiled giddily, finishing it up. “There’s a whole bowl of it in the kitchen.”

Despite the fact that Mie wasn’t really in PJ’s favor, he still grabbed Dan’s hand that was free from the cup and led him through the people into the kitchen expertly, so they wouldn’t get separated. Once in the kitchen, they pushed chatting people aside and got to the bowl – Dan refilling his cup and PJ getting a new one. It was a bit less noisy out there, with windows opened in order to let inside some of the fresh air.

“Already getting hammered?” PJ teased him, looking at the way Dan started to gulp alcohol.

“I deserve it,” he shot back, sticking his tongue out and receiving a playful shove right after.

They haven’t had much time to chat when Mike swayed into the kitchen and walked towards them, with a drunken smile sprawled across his face.

“Hi PJ,” he smiled at him, wrapping his arm around Dan’s waste and bringing him closer to himself. “Are you guys up for some Truth or Dare?” he bumped Dan’s hips with his own ones, clearly being excited over the idea. His eyes were going back and forth between PJ and Dan, waiting for them to either accept or decline his invitation.

“Sure thing,” PJ smiled at him, which surprised Dan. He shot a questioning look to grinning PJ, who just shrugged and, swiftly finishing his drink, started to walk back to the lounge.

“You are in a suspiciously good mood today,” Dan said to PJ after plopping down in a circle between him and Mike.

“Glad to hear that you describe my good mood as ‘suspicious’,” PJ laughed, poking Dan. He just rolled his eyes and adjusted his position, looking at all of the other people and mentally preparing himself for what was about to happen.

“Play Too Hot with Mike,” Katy, Pete’s cousin, was the third person to pick Dan up for their turn. Everyone else cheered at that choice of a dare, which make Dan’s cheeks a little bit rosier and his smirk a little bit wider.

He turned his body towards Mike, meeting his facial expression that was a copy of his and, listening to people cheer even louder, they both leaned in at the same time. It was just for the show because everyone understood what kind of a “wish” the winner would be granted, but everyone just enough drunk to want to witness some hot makeout session, so they just gave in.

Dan’s lips found Mike’s in a matter of moments, and they began their usual routine. Mike tugged at Dan’s lower lip slightly, still moving slowly and sweetly, just like honey, laying the intimacy of a moment bare in front of people, before picking up the pace.

Their kiss became hungrier, more desperate, and by the frustrated moans that slipped from Mike’s side, Dan figured that it was just as hard for him to keep his hands to himself, even if there was no actual need of doing that rather than for, apparently, entertainment purposes.

The clapping and shouting began when Mike decided to add some tongue, licking Dan’s lips and immediately slipping inside of his mouth. The kiss grew sloppier with each second, and it became impossible for Dan to hold back a satisfied moan, to the positive reaction of the crowd. They still held themselves tight, their hands itching to land on each other’s bodies, and, judging by Mike’s breathing, Dan assumed that they were going to be moving away from PG-13 pretty soon.

Being drunk has its own perks, such as being just enough of an excuse for you do get half-hard in front of twenty people that you talk to almost on a weekly basis. Mike kept licking his mouth and sometimes kissing down his neck, so Dan was barely coping when Mike suddenly grunted and, using the fact that Dan’s knee was in between his thighs, grinded himself against Dan, which was met by loud whistling.

“Jesus, get a room,” PJ laughed, Dan barely being able to recognize the voice while his mind was preoccupied with another intense activity.

Mike then tugged at his lip one more time and pulled away just enough for their lips to separate. He looked Dan in the eyes with his pupils blown up and smirked at him. “We just might,” he agreed then, getting up with a predator’s expression on his face. Dan quickly looked behind himself only to meet PJ’s encouraging wink. He then grabbed Mike’s hand, pulled himself up and let Mike drag him upstairs, accompanied by the sound of cheering even louder than before. It all was cut off when Mike slammed the door behind them with his leg, kissing and pushing Dan further into the room, until his knees met the bed and folded, letting him fall down and pull his boyfriend with him.  


	6. Chapter 6

Dan was woken up by his body being lifted in the air and then falling back down on his bed. Startled, he shot his eyes open and, seeing that it was dark in his flat, threw his body to the right in order to roll off from the bed in an attempt to hide from _something_ that broke into his home.

His body met floor with a heavy thud, all air immediately leaving his lungs. He laid there, face down the carpet, listening to the sounds of movement and not daring to breathe. He could feel his heart going off with an enormous speed in his ears, every beat echoing with pulsation.

His mind was already running, trying to find a way to escape the situation, when he heard an eruption of laughter, lighthearted and amused, clearly not holding any threat in itself.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he mumbled, his words followed by a sigh of relief, before lifting his body up to the sitting position. “I should’ve known better than giving you my spare keys,” he added, pressing his head against the side of his bed and trying to calm his heart down. “If a heart attack is the best birthday present you could think of, I’m disowning you,” he muffled into the mattress, not bothering to open his eyes.

PJ’s laughter faded a little, still bubbling in his chest, and he scooted over the bed, now lying across it, right next to still heavily breathing Dan.

“Happy Birthday,” he exclaimed happily. Dan lifted his head and found his face inches away from PJ’s, whose smile was just about as blinding as Dan’s phone on full brightness in the middle of a night.

“Thanks,” Dan huffs at that, lifting himself up and starting to walk towards the bathroom, grabbing a fresh pair of boxers on his way.

“Don’t act like you’re not happy to see me,” PJ sang, getting comfortable in Dan’s bed and picking his phone from a nightstand, probably to scroll through his Tumblr feed.

When Dan was closing the bathroom door behind himself, he let the corners of his mouth go up and form a dimply smile because _of course_ , he was happy.

When he walked back, PJ was under his blanket, his shoes neatly put under the bed. Hearing the noise, PJ turned his head to the left to eye Dan, his gaze going all the way up from his very toes to the mess of a curly wet hair, still slightly dripping down his body.

PJ whistled at the sight, earning a damp towel being thrown at him by Dan and immediately sending it back with a cheeky grin. Dan damped his hair to get the moisture out of it the best he could and, after putting the towel into the dryer, walked to the side of the bed he had fallen over from.

“Move,” he ordered PJ, crawling under the blanket right beside him and putting his head on his shoulder, turning his attention towards obscure memes that PJ was currently looking at.

“Your hair is wet,” he whined, nudging Dan’s head slightly.

“And you almost made my poor heart stop. Now suffer,” Dan replied nonchalantly, nuzzling his head further into the crook of PJ’s neck, making sure that his wet locks were pressed against his skin.

“Do you have any ideas about today?” PJ asked eventually when Dan’s hair was already dry and the blanket not covering them completely because it was too hot to share it.

“I thought you did,” Dan murmured, his sleep-deprived body ready to fall into a slumber, with the heat of the blanket and PJ’s body against it doing not much to prevent it from doing so.

“I have a backup plan but I figured you might have something on our mind,” PJ spoke, tangling his fingers in Dan’s curls and massaging Dan’s head, which made him make a sound of pleasure.

“All I have on my mind is sleep Peej,” and, to stay true to his words, he accompanied his statement with a yawn. “It’s only eight am, which is extremely early for a person who has a day off.”

“Okay then,” PJ sat up and tossed Dan’s phone away, burying it somewhere in the sheets. “How about you take a nap while I’m making you some breakfast and then if you don’t decide what you want to do we figure it out together once you’re able to function?”

“Sounds good,” Dan agreed, nestling into a pillow and pulling the covers that PJ threw off back up, cocooning himself and closing his eyes.

Waking up to the smell of freshly brewed coffee and made food was something that stopped being a habit of Dan’s, yet the sensation was as comforting as ever. The window was probably open, so Dan could hear the street outside – people talking, cars driving and kids asking why the sky is blue. He stirred under the blankets, trying to buy himself a bit more time before he has to open his eyes and face the day in whatever crazy way PJ had it for him in store.

His hunger, however, ended up being more powerful than laziness, so he cracked one eye open, immediately focusing on PJ, who was sat behind the table. Dan sighed loudly and stretched his body, signalling to PJ that he was awake.

“Hello Sleeping Beauty,” PJ smiled at him, getting up from the chair he was sat on and moving towards the counter, transferring plates and cups onto the table.

“What time is it?” Dan yawned one last time before throwing the covers off his chest and sitting up.

“Almost ten, you didn’t sleep for that long,” PJ informed him after glancing at his phone.

“Good,” Dan replied absentmindedly, staring into space in front of him, still not completely awake.

“Come here, the food is already turning called,” PJ rushed him, moving the second chair away from the table for Dan to sit on.

With coffee steam hitting directly your face and your best friend feeding you one of the best breakfasts you’ve had in a while, it’s nearly impossible to stay sleepy, so in less than twenty minutes Dan’s mind was clear and ready for planning the adventure for his birthday.

“So, do you have anything you’d like to do?” PJ asked, chewing on a banana that has already gotten a bit dark after sitting in Dan’s fridge for a while. The food that he brought had disappeared, surely, but Dan wasn’t a family of three to be done with everything in such a short period of time, considering the fact that his meals were irregular due to his working hours.

“I really don’t know,” Dan stirred his coffee, looking at the foam swirling and forming different patterns. It was really as good as cloud gazing – you could see shapes and forms in bubbles and different colours of still not fully dissolved instant coffee, that he for some reason preferred over a brewed one in the morning. PJ thought that he was weird and, Dan wasn’t even going to argue, because at other times his coffee was always brewed. He even realized that instant coffee didn’t have the same effect, because whenever he has to pull up an allnighter, he always goes for a stronger one. Maybe he preferred it in the morning exactly because of this – a peaceful thing that occupied your mind instead of a waterfall of responsibilities, schedules and calculating if you need to work without weekends or you could manage just fine with a Sunday off.

“What’s that?” PJ pointed a finger towards Dan’s bed, which made Dan look at him with concern. “No, not your bed,” PJ rolled his eyes at that, circling with his finger and pointing a little bit higher. “The thing on your bedside drawer,” he explained then, taking a sip of his probably-too-ho-for-Dan’s-liking-coffee. PJ always added some water in Dan’s. His tongue and teeth were too sensitive.

“Oh, that’s a swan,” Dan recognized the bird in a white spot that was blurry due to his eyes still filled with sleep.

“Didn’t know you could do origami,” PJ hummed.

“I can’t. The British guy made it,” he said, immediately correcting himself, “I mean _Phil_ made it.”

“Oh,” PJ lifted his eyebrows, although not looking anything nearly as shocked as Dan had already prepared himself for. “What a nice guy,” he concluded, finishing off his cup of coffee and standing up to wash his cup.

“Yes,” Dan said, absentmindedly looking at the paper swan on his bedside drawer. “Yes he is,” he whispered to himself, remembering how excited the guy was when he was talking to Dan about the surfing guy that was training him yesterday, all smiles and giddiness. He was indeed a good guy, or at least he gave off an impression of such, because Dan still didn’t know him at all. Then it hit him. “Hey Peej,” he looked at his back, putting his head on the table to cool down a little.

“Hm?” he closed the tap, grabbed a towel and started to dry the cup, turning towards Dan and pressing his hips against the counter.

“I’ve never gone surfing,” Dan confessed, looking at PJ’s widening eyes and noticing that he stopped in his movement.

“Are you serious?” he quirked his eyebrow, putting the cup on the counter, “You’ve lived in Los Angeles for four years.”

“I know.”

“And you’ve never gone surfing.”

“Yep.”

 PJ stared at him, disappointed but not surprised are the exact words that Dan would describe his expression with.

“Well, I guess we figured out our plans for the day,” PJ shrugged and hang the towel back on the wall.

Beach sand was barely resisting Dan’s weight, making his feet sink in a little with every step he took. Light breeze from the ocean was meeting his face, which was a nice feeling he didn’t get to enjoy too often. As he and PJ walked, some tiny specks of salty water landed on him, being brought up by the wind from the ocean every time a wave hit the wet sand, dissolving people’s footprints on its way.

There were not a lot of people around because it was Thursday and they had to be at work. The only people here were the ones who considered running barefoot and letting the ocean lick their feet one of the most important parts of their everyday routines, the sound reminding Dan of jumping on puddles when he was little.

Another couple of minutes filled with walking beside PJ and they had stopped, arriving at a rental place, which was empty except for one person inside, who smiled cheerfully at the sight of two of them walking inside, accompanied by the sound of a bell that hanged down from the doorframe.

Dan left it to PJ to talk to the girl about what they needed, looking around and taking notice of different boards. Some of them were shorter and some were longer, wide or narrow, with tropical flowers on them or just brightly coloured ones. He hasn’t even thought that surfboards were this different, now wondering how he would be able to pick the right one.

“Let’s go and change,” PJ interrupted his thoughts, walking up to him and handing him a wetsuit. The material felt weird between Dan’s fingers, which gave him an uneasy feeling in his stomach.

Dan thought that if PJ wanted him to get in shape by doing exercise, he should’ve told him right away and not make him do it using ‘a standing up technique’ as a cover-up. His wetsuit was completely matching its name and he hadn’t even stepped in the ocean yet. His palms were sweaty and they were sticking to the surface of his bright-red surfboard whenever he helped himself to stand up. So far, it wasn’t fun at all.

“Alright, that’s enough,” PJ commanded, and Dan flopped down on his board. “No, get up, we’re going into the water,” he walked closer to Dan and lightly nudged him with his feet, so now Dan’s side had a sandy footprint.

The water was worse. Besides the obvious and expected moisture, which added a sprinkle of a challenge despite the wax, the board now was unsteady, following the curves of the waves. Every time Dan fell, he struggled with the leash, and PJ’s indulgent smirk wasn’t doing him any good, even though he kept hearing words of encouragement.

It got better. An hour had passed and Dan could balance on the board, falling down only when he got closer to the beach. Truth be told, the white water wasn’t even remotely hard to deal with. However, PJ was rather ecstatic about his progress, so soon enough (or one more hour later), he went to the beach line with Dan, previously staying afloat next to the place where Dan was learning how to steady himself.

“Are we done?” Dan brushed wet hair out of the way looking at his friend marching towards the dry spot on the beach where they’ve left their flip-flops ( _the could be glass, Dan_ ), wax ( _I’m not going all the way back if it wipes off too quickly_ ) and two spare leashes ( _just in case_ ).

“No, the wind has changed,” PJ shouted from afar, looking back and waving at Dan to follow him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dan shouted, trying to be loud enough to be heard through the sound of seagulls screaming and tine waves crashing into each other. He didn’t get anything from PJ, so he just followed him, muttering to himself in which part of the human body he wouldn’t mind shoving that damn leash.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dan asked again, sitting down next to PJ who was waxing his surfboard excessively.

“That now we’re actually going to try and do some surfing.”

It was quite a disaster but Dan considered it a fun one. If he didn’t know better, he would claim that now he was 90% water with the amount of swallowing the salty liquid he had unintentionally done. He managed to catch only a couple of waves and not fall in the first hour and a half, so he got frustrated and simply wanted to dry off and go home, not even speaking of the fact that he was hungry as hell with all the exercise.

PJ partly gave in, so they went back to the beach and sat there, just resting. Dan felt weird stepping back on the ground, wondering if it was just as weird to do for Davy Jones. PJ laughed. They sat there until Dan could no longer feel the tension in his muscles, and then they went back into the water because the wind grew stronger and PJ promised that it would be more fun.

Indeed, it was more fun, yet still horribly tiring, so now they were lying on Dan’s bed, both haven’t bothered by shower and with their hair still wet, a box of pizza on their legs that were pressed against each other and some mukbang videos from YouTube playing in the background on Dan’s laptop, which was placed on the mattress, just below their left legs folded in opposite directions, making room for it.

“Thanks for today Peej,” Dan sighed contently, tilting his head left to look at his friend.

“Anything for you,” PJ shot him a soft smile in response. Three seconds into looking at each other, PJ’s eyes widen and eyebrows go up a little before “I almost forgot your present!” erupted from his mouth, making him jump off the bed nearly letting the pizza drop on the sheets.

Dan sat more upright, putting the pizza box on his bedside drawer and adverting his gaze towards PJ, who now was coming back to sit on the bed holding his backpack. He settled in front of Dan to face him properly, one hand already squirming for something still concealed with fabric.

“Close your eyes and hold your hands out,” he ordered. “I have a few things, actually and one of them is not from me but I’ll give it to you in the end,” he explained and placed the first present in Dan’s hands.

It felt light, Dan was almost certain that it was a parcel and he was definitely certain that he was going to kill PJ if he decided to give him money. He opened his eyes to see that there was indeed a parcel lying in his hands. He shot PJ a questioning look and then opened the thing, feeling his shoulders relax after not finding any money in there.

“Tickets to an exhibition?” Dan mumbled to himself before letting a smile bloom on his face. “Are your works going to be here?” he asked, already knowing the answer by the look on PJ’s face. “Why two of them though? Are you going with me?”

“Well, I’ll be there, obviously,” PJ rolled his eyes at that question because how couldn’t he if there were going to be his works and those tickets are for the grand opening, “but no. Those are for you and your plus one,” he explained then patiently, already diving into the backpack for the second time.

“Thank you,” Dan smiled softly at him, putting as much affection as he could into his voice because it was a very good present.

“You’re welcome. Now close your eyes again,” PJ repeated. This time the thing was heavier and took more space, significantly bigger than Dan’s hands.

“A Studio Ghibli book?” he widened his eyes in surprise, wrapping his fingers around the cover. “You’re the best,” Dan gave PJ a toothy grin before putting the book aside and wrapping him in a grateful hug.

“You’re welcome,” PJ ruffled his hair with a hand that wasn’t hugging Dan back. When they pulled back, PJ’s face got more serious, which made Dan’s smile drop a little, a sinking feeling already finding its place in Dan’s stomach.

“The last thing is not from me,” PJ stated with a warning expression on his face. He didn’t ask Dan to close his eyes and just simply pulled out a card out of his backpack.

Dan took the card out of his hands. It was not even a birthday card, just a simple postcard with a picture of a really happy dog on it.

 

_Happy Birthday Dan._

_Love you,_

_Michael_

 

“Where did you get it from?” Dan asked, his eyes still glued to his little brother’s handwriting.

“Your doormat,” PJ explained simply, copying Dan’s position and looking at the card. “He’s a great guy, your brother.”

“He is,” Dan agreed and stood up to put the card into the furthest corner of his dresser next to the three other ones.

There was a sound of a text message, so Dan grabbed his phone from the bed, still standing next to the dresser. He found out that there was a missed one as well, sent almost four hours ago. He opened it first and smiled at the screen, reading a Happy Birthday message from Cassidy’s mom, notifying him that the next time he comes to babysit Cassidy will give him a present that she made, and shot a quick thank you back. The next text was, as expected, from Mike - just a simple ‘ _Happy Birthday :)_ ’. They didn’t celebrate each others’ birthdays, which was initiated by Mike and which also made Dan feel surprisingly shitty this time.

**Author's Note:**

> My [Tumblr](http://kategkateg.tumblr.com)


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